


some things never change

by forgottenstonework



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:45:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgottenstonework/pseuds/forgottenstonework
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Steven Grant Rogers didn’t need him and never would. And he didn’t need Steven Grant Rogers (he could only hope this was the truth).</p>
            </blockquote>





	some things never change

The moment he saw the exhibit was the moment he made his decision. That night he boarded a plane, with one possession that was truly his; an empty name. James Buchanan Barnes. It rolled through his mind like waves. Instead of giving back what he had lost, it swept the evidence away and back into the ocean.

He swore, he told himself as he looked out the window, that he would be free. If that meant destroying everything that ever touched him from James’ death on, so be it. He would take HYDRA down, eradicate it from the earth. Then he would disappear forever, perhaps from existence. He had yet to decide.

The Winter Soldier whispered in his ear. He had yet to complete his mission. His irritation caused him to shake, for his nails to embed themselves in his leg. The Captain was supposed to be eliminated. Instead he had saved him, diving into the water with a broken arm and pulling the fallen hero to the bank. He had saved a man that meant nothing to him.

As the plane landed and he walked into the approaching darkness, he spared only a split second thinking of what could have been.

But Steven Grant Rogers didn’t need him and never would. And he didn’t need Steven Grant Rogers (he could only hope this was the truth).

He promised himself that even if he did regain his memories, he wouldn’t let them change him. He had found out the hard way what emotions did. They destroyed. He had lo- he amended- liked Steven Rogers. He would die for him. And he did. He had become a monster, he smiled to himself. The cold kept away the painful warmth.

 

 

\--

 

 

He didn’t remember. Nothing came back. Not a smell, not a sight, not a single memory. He decided, as he looked at the dead bodies lying calmly on the floor, blood and shock painting their faces, that he was glad. The smiling man wouldn’t have approved. Sure, according to the Smithsonian, he killed. But, that was for his country. This, this atrocity, wasn’t for anything except himself (of so he told the voice).

 

 

\--

 

 

He leveled three bases in four months. It was slow work.

 

 

\--

 

 

There were no survivors. The last one alive had cried. His tears had mixed with the blood weeping from the wound on his cheek. He pleaded and begged for mercy while the metal arm tightened. He hadn’t answered the question. He snapped his neck. He looked at the blood under his finger nails, the stains in his pants. He missed his uniform. Which one, a voice whispered.

He ignored it.

 

 

\--

 

 

Nothing came back. He was a nobody, a nothing, with nothing stored away in his mind except what he stole from around him.

 

 

\--

 

 

He was leaving Moscow when he realized he was being followed. The wind rustled the leaves in warning.

 

 

\--

 

 

He stopped killing every man and woman he came across who was related to HYDRA. He would do his research. Those who couldn’t be saved were put out of their pity with a shot to the head. Those who had little involvement he spared, leaving them tied together and helpless for his pursuers to find.

 

 

\--

 

 

A boy in an American city stopped him. He froze, believing his cover was about to be blown. The child instead grasped his left hand with his own prosthetic arm, and smiled, before saying excitedly, “Cool arm, mister!” His mother was mortified and quickly swept the boy away.

 

 

\--

 

 

The next HYDRA base he plunged into had already been taken care of. A note was left on the door. It was in quickly scrawled font, barely legible. ‘You don’t have to keep running’. He replied to no one, not even the air.

He couldn’t keep the voice from asking who he was really running from. When he didn’t answer, it supplied a smug _yourself._

 

 

\--

 

 

The day he decided that he liked something for the first time – it was a song he heard in passing, the voice drawling a wistful _we’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl_ – was the day he cut his hair.

He told himself it was because it was more practical and not because it was familiar.

 

 

\--

 

 

When he returned to his hotel he found a letter slipped under the door. He stuffed it in his back pocket without so much as glancing at the name on the front. The warmness in his chest was immediately suppressed by a scowl.

 

 

\--

 

 

HYDRA was almost eliminated. So much for the motto they screeched through stained teeth as he slit their throats. He had killed enough, chained enough, that there was barely any remaining. He allowed himself to feel the slightest amount of hope.

 

 

\--

 

 

It was the last HYDRA nest. He had done his research. He stood, his gun cocked towards a particularly despicable agent, when he heard his old name being yelled urgently. He turned his head to see a flash of blue and to hear a stale crack. The man well to his knees, the ground rapidly approaching as his balance gave out.

His vision turned red. He picked up the shield at the man’s side.

He hurled it at the man with the gun. The death was instant. He remembered faintly wishing that the man had suffered.

He dropped down, rolling the man over to look at his face. He checked his pulse. It was faint, but it was there. It was there.

The man opened his eyes laboriously. A bullet was wedged in his heart, his body in a battle to heal itself as the beats grew farther and farther apart. He croaked out a question, a simple word. “Bucky?”

He frowned. A crack in his mind widened. There was a flood.

Bucky Barnes sobbed uncontrollably, clutching at Steve’s chest, the blood seeping out of the artery and into his hands. He moaned out a broken, “Steve…”

Steve Rogers’s eyes did not widen. They merely looked at peace, as a smile lit his fading face. He whispered contently, “Bucky.” There was no question in his voice as his breathing stopped and he closed his eyes.

 

 

\--

 

 

The injuries recorded were five broken arms, ten bloody noses, sixteen stab wounds, and one fractured skull before the brunette slumped into a ball and allowed himself to be taken into custody. There was no fatalities in the skirmish.

Natasha Romanov stood shaking in the desperate embrace of Sam Wilson as they watched the body being carried away. It had sustained injuries after death from a metal fist. They had watched the soldier pounding the Captain and yelling, “Why won’t you wake up, they said you would wake up, they said you could heal… Why aren’t you healin’, you punk, open your eyes, I know you can hear me…” before he took to pounding the ground and wailing.

 

 

\--

 

 

They watched from a distance. A gravestone lay decorated with flowers and pictures, letters of heartfelt goodbyes, drawings scrawled with crayons and stained children’s tears. A shield leaned on the grave, the metal worn and scratched with wear.

Bucky Barnes hugged the stone, his face wet from seventy years of tremendous loss. The country had lost their beloved America, the Avengers their fearless leader. He had lost Steve Rogers.

A voice muttered, “Do you think he’ll be alright?”

A voice replied limply, “Will any of us be?”

 

 

\--

 

 

Someone had snapped a photo of Captain America’s best friend at the burial site, his face clean shaven but ruined by loss, arms wrapped around all that was left of the man held dear to his heart. It had gone viral.

Attached was a letter, submitted by an anonymous user who had somehow gotten their hands on the last thing Rogers wrote before his death.

_Dear Bucky,_

_I doubt you’ll read this until I force you to one day. It’s important. I don’t think I’ll ever have the courage to say any of this out loud, so I figured why not now? The worst you could do is kill me, but even then, you would at least know the secret that I’ve been hiding in my pocket for all these years, and that would be enough._

_I still remember the day I met you. I had gotten my skinny hide in trouble and then came the boy that would soon become my hero out of nowhere. You just popped out of thin air to fight by my side. Of course, we lost, but the bond that was formed that sunny afternoon kept._

_I owe so much to you, Buck. I owe my life to you more times than I can count. I wouldn’t of even made it to war without you, and I don’t doubt that I would have gotten killed in war if you hadn't been stupid enough to stick by my. You were by my side, no questions asked, for as long as I can remember. You would have died for me. As it turned out, you did. In light of these recent developments, you only died metaphorically, didn’ you?_

_I was broken after you fell. I wanted to go and look, I wanted to follow you into that wretched pit of snow, but I thought you for dead and there was a war to be fought. I let it taint me, Buck. I hardened and I wanted nothing more than to destroy, than to kill, every man who even remotely had something to do with my losing you. It wasn’t right, the way I went in bent on revenge. But when I lost you, Buck, when I lost you, I lost everything my life was worth._

_What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t just broken, I was heartbroken. I think you understand where I’m going with this. I cared deeply for Peggy, but you were the stars in my sky. I woke up and fought each day for you. My heart beat stronger when I saw you. I loved you, Buck._

_The thing is, I still love you. I know that’s a lot to put on you, because I don’t know what you feel about me, but I don’t expect anything. I just want you to know that you’re still my knight in shining armor. I need you to accept yourself. You’ve done bad things, but haven’t we all? You were manipulated for over seventy years, constantly wiped and torn apart, frozen when you weren’t needed. Cut yourself a break. Whenever you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, what you are, try and remember that you’re still my world._

_I understand that you’ve changed, that you can never be the man I knew. That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve changed, because you’ll always be my Bucky Barnes. Nothing stays stagnant, even under ice. I’m not the boy you may someday remember, but deep down, the core of who I always will be isn’t gone. Just like you. You’re a good man, James Buchanan Barnes._

_The road is rough, Bucky. It’s not gonna be easy, not any of it. But you don’t have to walk it alone. I’ll always be by your side._

_Always yours,_

_Steve Rogers_


End file.
